The present invention is directed to electrical and communication receptacle units, and in particular electrical receptacles and receptacles for communication lines adapted to be mounted proximate to a work area.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,964,618, entitled xe2x80x9cRemovable Desktop Electrical Receptacle Unitxe2x80x9d, was issued to the present Applicant on Oct. 12, 1999. The disclosure of this patent is incorporated by reference herein. U.S. Pat. No. 5,964,618 is directed to a removable electrical receptacle unit which includes a housing having a plurality of separate electrical receptacles. A plate-like mounting element extends downwardly from the bottom surface of the housing, and a slot is defined in the plate-like element. The plate-like element and the slot cooperate with separate mounting means including a separate clamp element 22 for removably mounting the housing to a work surface.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,870,274; 2,271,463; 2,470,196; 3,049,688; 3,297,886; 3,956,573; 4,500,150; 5,057,039; 5,124,506; 5,199,888; 5,238,416; 5,501,614; and 5,788,521 were each cited of record during the prosecution of the application resulting in U.S. Pat. No. 5,964,618. Each of these patents generally illustrates the background state of the art.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,875,878; 5,318,259; 5,899,761; 6,042,426; and Des. Pat. No. 401,221 also generally disclose removably mountable or portable electrical receptacle units. These patents, like the previously identified patents, generally illustrate the background state of the art.
It is a primary object of the present invention to provide a removably mountable receptacle unit constituting an improvement over the device disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,964,618. In accordance with this objective, the improvement of the present invention provides a housing having upper and lower sections integrally connected to each other and separated by a recessed portion for mounting the housing, as a whole, to a supporting structure, such as an edge of a table top or desk.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following discussion herein.
The present invention provides a receptacle unit including one or more receptacles for removably receiving plugs from electrical wires or communication lines. The receptacle unit is formed from a housing having an upper section and a lower section, the upper and lower sections being integrally connected to each other but separated by a generally centrally disposed recess defined in the housing. The individual electrical and communication receptacles are provided in the upper section of the housing. The lower section of the housing includes means for coupling the housing to sources of electrical line power and existing communication lines for activating or energizing the individual receptacles in the upper section of the housing.
The recessed portion of the housing separating the upper and lower housing sections is provided for mounting the housing, as a whole, to a supporting structure such as the edge of a table top or desk. The housing is moved relative to the table top so as to receive a portion of the edge of the table top in the recessed portion of the housing for removably mounting the housing to the table top. Additional means can be provided to firmly secure the housing to the edge of the table top when the housing is mounted thereto. Accordingly, the housing is readily -mounted to a table top and readily removably therefrom to provide temporary means for connecting electrical and communications equipment supported on the table top to the receptacles in the upper section of the housing. In this manner, equipment such as telephones, fax machines, computers, and recording devices are supported on the top of, for example, a conference table, to enable the equipment to be used during a meeting conducted around the conference table, and the housing can be readily removed from the conference table after the meeting has concluded.
In a further aspect of the present invention, a system of separate housings, each of which includes the same or different numbers of receptacles, are combined to meet varying power and communications needs. For example, a first housing can include a single electrical receptacle, a single communications line receptacle, or both a single electrical receptacle and a single communications line receptacle. A second housing can include two separate electrical receptacles, two separate communications receptacles, or both electrical receptacles and communications line receptacles. Other housings can include different numbers of electrical and/or communications line receptacles. In this manner, the number of separate housings removably mounted to a supporting surface is selectively adjustable to meet varying needs for different numbers of electrical and communications line receptacles available to meet differing needs for different occasions.